Toshiro felt hollow in the stomach. How could this disaster happen? They had been pushing the enemy back everywhere up until recently, but the enemy had clearly not been committing all their troops or at least only enough to stop his people from completely breaking through while they built up their reserves. Down south, the arrival of the Nuzeelanders and that damnable mentalist had reversed their fortunes. Three whole divisions of fresh troops was a staggering number for them to deploy out of the blue. “Anything else I need to know about?”

“We have indications that there are at least two more divisions following up their advance that are so far unengaged. It may well be that the units are reserves for the formations they have deployed, but we don’t think so.”

“Marvelous. What have we got left?”

“Not much, sir. According to the mechanics, there are two damaged gun carriages that they have just finished repairing that can be deployed, and they will have one tank repaired by tomorrow, but that’s all there is in the way of armor without reinforcements from home. Their drones have taken a massive toll on all our armored vehicles. We were organizing a combat group around six of the personnel carriers and roughly thirty cyborgs that have recovered sufficiently from injuries and damage to be put back on the front line.”

“There are approximately one hundred wounded ex-civilian soldiers that we can put back on the frontlines tomorrow as well. We have approximately a thousand male civilians we can arm that we hadn’t up until now because there unfit in one way or another, but apart from that, we’re basically scraping the bottom of the barrel unless we get reinforcements from home.”

“And how heavy  are the casualties the enemy has taken from those fresh divisions during their advance?”

“Because of the drones, their casualties have been light, sir. Maybe five percent tops.”

Toshiro shook his head. “And their divisions are what, sixteen or eighteen thousand men strong?”

“Probably more like twenty thousand, sir.”

The man looked scared and stiff despite trying to keep a blank expression on his face. He probably expected Toshiro would punish him for the bad news he had just delivered. Many commanders would, Toshiro knew. Toshiro had never felt any need to shoot the messenger, no matter how unhappy he was with the news he was receiving.

“What about arming the women?”

Captain Tokigawa snorted. “Besides the fact that we have never used women in combat, it is an idea that was discussed. Unfortunately, General Koga decided to use the women and children as suicide bombers. He had grenades and other devices strapped to them, with a mentalist commanding them to cross the bridge on the southwestern side of the city. The idea was that they would spread amongst the attackers and blow them up, hopefully breaching the entire front.”